A short YouTube guitar lesson by Lauren Bateman teaching a simplified, beginner-friendly tab of 'Jingle Bells.' The melody is played using only the B and G strings within the first three frets; fingering numbers (1–3) map to index/middle/ring fingers. The video walks through the song line-by-line, then offers a play-along full run-through; a printable PDF is available to Patreon supporters.
All right, it's Ugly Christmas sweater time, and we're going to learn Jingle Bells today. But I'm going to do a very simplified version. This one's great for beginners because we're going to be picking the melody, and we're just going to be using a couple different strings, and we're going to be sticking within the first three frets of our guitar, which is great. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you the tab on the screen, and we're going to make this fun and simple and easy for you guys to play this holiday season.
Now, what I love about, like, familiar Christmas songs like this and doing tab is that if you know the melody to the song, we really don't have to talk a lot about the rhythm because the notes follow the rhythm of the song, so it makes it really great for beginners to learn. Now, in this song, we're going to be using it, the open string, the first fret, the second fret, and the third fret. And when you see the number one on the tab, we're going to be using our first finger. You see the number two, we're going to be using our second finger. And when you see the number three, we're going to be using our third finger. Now, if you're not familiar with how to read tab, I would pause the video and go watch my video up there on how to read tab and then come back here to start this lesson. So the entirety of this song is played on the B string and the G string. And we're going to start on the B string, which is Jingle Bells.
So it'll say Jingle Bells.
That's all open B string. And then you're going to repeat that. That again.
It's already really easy, right? That's what I do. I make it easy for you guys. All right, and then the third measure, we have an open B string, third fret on the B string. We come up to the G string. Open G string, second fret on the G string, and then back down to the B string. Okay, so that's our first line of this song. It's open, open, open, open, open, open, open, three, open, two, open. Okay, one more time without me talking.
Now, our second line is great because we're starting back on the B string, and we're playing all the first fret on that B string. So first finger on that first fret of the B string. It's going to be, oh, what fun it is. All of that is the first Fret on the first string.
Oh, what fun it is.
And then we get to ride to becomes open, open, open, open, open and then open again. So we have five ones followed by five opens.
Oh, what fun it is to ride in A one.
And now horse is where we change. So horse, we're coming to the G string second fret. Playing that twice, then open B back up to the G second fret and then third finger on the B string for hey. Okay, so it's going to be.
Okay. Can you hear the melody? That's why I love doing stuff like this, because you can hear the melody and you instinctively know what the rhythm is. And don't worry at the end I'm going to play this top to bottom so you guys can play along with me. So don't worry about it. Alright, coming back, we're on the third line now and we're starting again. We're repeating what we did in the beginning. So it's basically you're just playing that first line over again.
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.
So you've already learned how to play that third line. And then the next one is just a repetition almost exactly of what we did on the second line.
We oh, what fun it is to ride in A.
Now this is where it changes. We have three. Three on the B string, one on the B string, two on the G string, and then open G on the ending.
So oh, what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh.
So this is the play along section. You can play along with me. And if you're a Patreon supporter, you can go print out the PDF so that you can have it in front of you. Or if you wrote it down on a piece of paper, we're just going to do a playthrough right now. I'll put the tab up on the screen so that you guys can follow as best as possible. But here we go. We'll play it through from the beginning. So we got 1, 2, 3, 4.
Jingle bells, jingle bells jingle all the way oh, what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh, hey. Jingle bells, jingle bells jingle all the way oh, what fun it is to run in a one horse open sleigh.
And there you have it. That is Jingle Bells. If you're looking for another fun song that does picking, I have a great lesson on Ode to Joy up there. Or if you want to check out my whole Christmas library, check out the playlist down on the bottom.
